Shut up! We have a TOOF!

Well, I can't believe it, but my baby has his first tooth. I was loathe to label that tiny white speck a "tooth" at first, b/c my children have tricked me this way before. Each of my three children has started drooling ridiculously by around 4 mos, always triggering that anticipation -- "Oooh! I think a tooth is coming!" Then you start nosing around in their mouths, searching, "Do I feel one? I think I do! I swear there is one coming!" Both Jack and Kate have laughed in my face this way. Jack drooled like a bulldog from 4 mos, but then didn't give me that elusive first tooth until 8 mos. Kate was even worse -- not only did she drool, but you could SEE those damn teef coming up there through the gums FOREVER, and yet the first one did not protrude from her little gums until -- ridiculously -- 11 mos. So I've been down this road before, and I was NOT to be fooled. I wasn't going to do the whole "I know there is a tooth coming" game, and then spend the next 6 months going "Ahem. Cough. Oops! Nope, not yet." Until last night.

Charlie is, I must say, the most perfect baby. And I'm not just saying that as a mother -- that is my complete, non-prejudiced opinion. And I had the same opinion about Jack AND Kate, so I DO think I'm an expert in this area -- that of judging the perfection of my own children. Ahem. Anyway, aside from the general fussiness surrounding the diagnosis, correct treatment, and occasional forgetfulness of medicating associated with his acid reflux, Charlie is quite the charmer. Almost always smiling, cooing, and generally flirting. The past two nights, however, he's been fussing a lot, and waking up at night to play the binkie game. I wasn't TOO surprised, since we still haven't gotten this whole "sleeping through the night" game down pat. But really, on Sunday night I actually had to give him a bottle at 3 am. And for anyone who knows me, I am a complete bottle-nazi after 4 mos. There are NO NIGHTTIME BOTTLES. But he just would not be soothed with the binkie, and Mommy needed some sleep, so I gave in. Then last night I'm nosing around in that mouth of his, since he was continually putting his whole entire fist in there, and I saw it. That tiny little white speck of porcelain. My baby has a toof. A TOOF!

Can you see it?

And it was there again this morning -- bigger this time. It's for real, people. It's a tooth. A TOOF! This is a milestone to say the least. So far he has broken the Finkelman record of refusing to give up a tooth before switching to finger foods. Kate, I must say, was on finger foods -- chicken nuggets, even -- by 7 mos, after refusing to even touch the pureed foods I lovingly MADE for that [ungrateful wretch of a] ahem, perfect baby. And at this point, I'm already OVER that first mom horror of giving your child non-pureed foods before the teeth come. (Remember that? "How can I give him a Cheerio -- he has no TEETH!" Ahhh...the days before I knew how well gums are adapted to eating everything short of a carrot or t-bone steak...) So now, those precious days of babyhood for my last, perfect, baby are slipping by. My last baby has a TOOF. College to follow. Sob...